


Under the Sky

by Corona



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Destroy Ending, F/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12889287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corona/pseuds/Corona
Summary: Garrus finds Shepard in the ruins of the Citadel.





	Under the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy! If there are any native Latvian speakers in the audience, I apologise for any potential butchery of your language. Corrections would be appreciated. Translations can be found at the bottom.

Days of relentless searching had turned up nothing, and they all must have taken no more than three hours total to rest and recuperate, but not one of them was faltering, least of all Garrus. The order from the top brass was clear enough, and while he wasn't always a very good turian, this one he could undoubtedly follow: _find and extract Commander J_ _ūlija Shepard._

Garrus would be damned if he was unable to carry out that order—as would the rest of the _Normandy_ crew, he well knew. They could hardly bear the thought any more than he could that they would lose their Commander just when the nightmare was finally at an end. And thus, though the top brass had ordered them to rest regularly and not to take on anything that was beyond them, they were tirelessly searching the ruins of the Citadel and pushing themselves past their limits to find her. As far as they all saw it, there was no other way that they could do this.

None of them dared voice the possibility that Shepard might already be dead. Indeed, Garrus dared not even think it. Real though it was, it was just too terrible to consider. Remembering the very last words that they had exchanged after Garrus had been injured, the promise he had extracted from her that she would come back to him so that she could hear him say her given name and tell her he loved her again, only spurred him on. Fatigue, hunger, and other such bodily needs could not touch him here. _You always keep your promises,_ he thought. _Don't break this one. Where are you?_

As he picked through the unrecognisable ruins—they could have been the embassies, or they could have been C-Sec, it was impossible to tell—Garrus wondered, for the thousandth time, what had happened up here. He had seen it happen, of course; everyone had. There had been no missing the wave of bright red energy that swept through the mass relays and rendered the Reapers dead in the water—especially when the _Normandy_ had ended up caught in the very same blast. He fancied that he knew very well just _what_ the wave had done, and where it had come from, but how had she done it? What had happened in the lead up to this?

He also wondered if it even mattered. The war was over; that much was plain to see. The cycle had been broken; the Reapers were dead. Did such trivialities matter in the face of such a victory?

He was distracted from the thought by a sudden flicker of movement across his visor. It came and went before Garrus could properly see what it was. Quickly coming to a halt, he focused on his visor. A few seconds later, there was another movement, and this time, he saw clear as day what it was.

_A life sign._

For a moment, Garrus thought it almost too good to be true. But soon enough, he realised that this was the real deal; his visor was receiving biofeedback. More specifically, it was recording a very erratic, shallow breathing pattern, somewhere within ten metres of him. Feeling his heart lift and his shoulders sag with relief, Garrus pulled up his omnitool, which was linked to the rest of the _Normandy_ crew, and spoke into it, "I'm picking up a life sign over here. I'm positive it's her; it has to be."

On the other end came a series of cheers, and shortly after, Cortez' voice broke through, saying, "Brilliant! Hold tight, Garrus; we'll all meet up and then we'll get on our way."

"Copy that," Garrus said distractedly. He dropped his arm and focused on his visor again; thank the spirits, the information on it told him that the life sign was coming from three metres to his right.

A bit of careful plodding through yet more rubble later, and Garrus knew that he was almost right on top of her. At once, he went down on his knees and began to dig, shifting seemingly endless pieces of debris out of the way as he burrowed down towards her. All the while, he prayed to every spirit there had ever been to let her be awake and as unharmed as possible, and his digging quick and efficient.

It was as he was shifting one very large bit of rubble out of the way, however, that the life sign suddenly disappeared.

Garrus stared, his heart plummeting, ice filling his veins. _No,_ he thought, unable to help the panic that had erupted so quickly inside him. _No, surely not. No! Commander! No! I'm almost there; stay with me! Stay with me! I'm getting there!_ At once, he picked up the pace, now digging at a speed that was frantic and may have come across as slightly insane to an observer unaware of the context. More prayers to the spirits filled his mind. By now, he was gasping for breath, and his muscles were sore with the effort and his fatigue that he had ignored for days by this point, but still, it could not touch him. He had to find her.

There was another flicker of movement across his visor, and Garrus almost jumped out of his skin when he realised that the life sign had returned. What relief that he might otherwise have felt was drowned out by his confusion. _What the hell—why'd it go away? Shit. How badly is she hurt?_ Garrus could go no faster than he already was, but spirits, how he wished he could.

In hindsight, he couldn't have been digging for long—no more than fifteen minutes, at most—but it felt like it had been an eternity when Garrus' hand finally brushed against something that wasn't rubble.

He realised almost at once what it was. It was ceramic—severely burned and battered, to be sure, but he recognised the texture of it all the same—which meant that it was armour. Hardly daring to hope, Garrus trailed his hand up and down, and it was as he was doing so that he felt the ceramic rise underneath it.

At the same time, his visor registered another breath, one that was less than a metre away from him.

The ice in his veins was at once chased away by a surge of relief more potent than any that he had ever known; all hints of dismay and worry were similarly washed away and drowned out by the sheer joy that now exploded in his chest just as quickly as the panic had done. A shaky, triumphant laugh escaped his mouth, and he promptly forgot his fatigue and the ache in his muscles. "Shepard!" he called out. "Commander! Commander, can you hear me?"

There was no verbal response, which was no surprise, but when Garrus removed his hand, he could have sworn that he saw the ceramic twitching, as though she were conscious and trying to reach him. "It's all right," he said. "You'll be out of there soon!"

Now knowing where she was, Garrus slowed down his efforts. He shifted every bit of rubble and detritus with great care. Every piece removed, no matter how small, revealed a little more of her in what little light he had to see by—an arm, terribly burned and bruised; a leg, horribly twisted; her dog tags, and then—

One more piece removed, and Garrus barely had time to reposition himself before Shepard was tumbling right out of the rubble and straight into his arms.

" _Commander!_ "

She looked horrible; there was no gentle way of putting it. Her armour had been reduced to little more than slag; her legs were twisted in ways that legs shouldn't twist; her arms were covered in dried blood as well as bruises and burns; there was a nasty-looking hole in the abdomen of her armour. Most alarmingly, her hands were mottled faintly purple, and her lips were just slightly tinged with blue. Looking at her, disbelief and some horror warred with his relief and joy. _Has she been here like this all this time? Spirits…_

Her eyes were half-shut and mostly unfocused, and it took them longer than usual to find him, but when they did, she smiled. "Garrus," she gasped. Her voice was hoarse and weak. "You… came…"

"Of course I did, Commander," he said. "I had to make sure you'd keep your promise."

She smiled again, weakly. "Did I?"

"I should think so. One sec." It was a bit awkward, but Garrus was able to bring up his omnitool again.

"Found her," he said. "She's alive."

There was more cheering, followed shortly by several messages of congratulations to the Commander and an update from Cortez: they had met up and were heading towards their position, but it would take some time for them to reach them. EDI and Liara were bringing a stretcher. "For us to carry her out on," Cortez added. "Don't even think about carrying her bridal style, Garrus. You don't know what other injuries she may have. Sit tight until we get there."

"Will do," Garrus said. "Thanks, Cortez." Shepard also whispered her thanks, and then Garrus lowered his arm again.

"Sit down, Garrus," Shepard said after a brief pause. "We'll be here a while. We may as well make ourselves as comfortable as we can."

Garrus thought that that was a vain hope, but he said nothing, merely finding the most comfortable ground that he could and promptly seating himself, as asked. He rested Shepard in his arms, wrapping them around her; she laid her head on his shoulder and stared up at the starry sky above them.

" _Skaists_ …" she gasped. " _Tik skaisti_ …"

Garrus looked at her. "What?"

Their eyes met. "My language," Shepard explained. Her voice was so very hoarse and so feeble. It was unsurprising, considering the state that she was in, but still, Garrus couldn't help but be slightly worried. "Beautiful, I said. So beautiful. The sky above…"

He looked back up to observe it, and then nodded, arms tightening around her. "It is," he agreed. "Especially now that it's at peace."

"Do you think I've earned this, Garrus?" Shepard asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?" he asked in turn. If he could have frowned, he would have.

Shepard shrugged slightly. "Since… since I set off the Crucible—and it's too long a story; I don't have the time to explain—and have been waiting here, I've been in and out of consciousness. I don't know how long it's been. But it feels like a few days ago when I start seeing all the people I've killed. Maybe I was dreaming, and maybe I was hallucinating. I don't… know. And I saw all the people who died for this. Wrex, Kaidan and Ashley, Tali, Samara, Miranda… so many more… You know what I've done, Garrus. This peace, do I deserve it?" Her words were interspersed by fits of weak coughing that left her gasping for breath.

Garrus answered almost at once. "You've done some questionable things, Shepard, I won't lie. But you've saved many more lives than you have ended. Every soul that exists now and every soul that has yet to be. If that doesn't qualify you for peace, I don't know what does."

She smiled again and lifted a hand to stroke his mandible. "I guess you're right. Time for me to go home, then," she said.

He remembered their conversation at the forward operating base in London—how she rejected his idea of retirement to somewhere warm and tropical in favour of returning to her home city, to which he had agreed. "Riga?"

"Yes," she said. She was still smiling. "I'll teach you how to speak Latvian, and you can come home with me. Maybe…" She was interrupted by another fit of coughing that left her gasping for breath. Garrus tightened his grip again and stared down worriedly at her. Was she supposed to be coughing like that?

When she had caught her breath, she continued, "Maybe… maybe we can find out what a human–turian baby looks like?"

Garrus blinked. "I thought you vetoed that. Said something about us not being cut out for parenthood and parental issues running rampant in the crew? And biology?"

Shepard laughed, but it sounded more like she was gasping for breath again. "I did, but being trapped in rubble for who knows how long tends… tends to give you a fresh perspective on things. How long has it been, anyway?"

"The better part of a fortnight, Shepard," Garrus said quietly.

"That long? _S_ _ūds!_ " Shepard shook her head. The disbelief was plain on her bloodied face. "I can't believe I've lasted that long. I mean, _look at me._ "

"You don't look that good, it's true," Garrus admitted. Shepard chuckled again, presumably at his bluntness. "But you're alive, and you're here. That's the main thing."

"More than that," she said. Her fingers stroked his mandible. "You're here with me. I never wanted anything more."

Garrus pressed their foreheads together, nuzzling her. "Neither did I," he murmured. He hesitated a moment, and then asked, "May I?" She might not have thought now to be the time or the place, especially considering how battered and broken she looked.

But evidently, she did, for her eyes, which had been so dull, finally lit up, though the effect was not as intense as it might have been otherwise. " _Please_ ," she whispered. Her hand moved around to the back of Garrus' neck and gently pulled him in, closing the distance between them.

Her lips were colder than they should have been on his carapace and their movements were so weak, but Garrus scarcely cared. He merely slowed down to match her, meeting her point for point, savouring the feeling of her lips on him in a way that he never quite had. It hadn't been all that long, but it had felt like an eternity to him. He had spent many a night in the past two weeks dreaming of this moment, and now he finally had it.

When they broke, he resumed nuzzling her forehead. "Shepard—" he began to say.

She cut him off with another laugh that sounded more like a gasp. "I think we're a _little_ bit past surnames at this point, don't you?" she teased. "And if I recall correctly, you promised me something when we last spoke."

Garrus was suitably chastised. He gave her a squeeze and started again. "Jūlija," he said. He tasted the name on his tongue, considering it, and felt that he could get used to this. She smiled again, both pleased and gratified. "I love you."

Her smile turned into a full grin, but it was only momentary; it quickly slipped off her face as though she was too weak to maintain it. She brought her hand up to stroke his mandible again. "I love you, too," she said, and though her voice was faltering and reduced almost to a whisper and, if anything, sounded even weaker than it had just a few moments ago, there was an ecstasy in it that was nothing short of incredible. That same feeling suddenly seemed to bleed into her muscles and her eyes, for her hand abruptly tightened on his face, and she pulled herself up to look at him with eyes burning with intensity. "But, listen. There's something I need to say to you."

He paused. "I think you should save it for later. Rest up. Like I said, you look—"

"I know," she said. "But I want to tell you now. I must tell you now. Please, Garrus."

A part of him began to wonder about her urgency, but he ignored it and nodded. "Tell me," he said.

She relaxed somewhat. "I've told you before how much you mean to me, and how much of a rock you've been for me, and you've told me how much I've changed your life. But I—I've never told you how much you changed mine. Because… you _did_ , you know. So much." Once again, her words were interrupted by a fit of coughing, one that left her breathless for much longer than the last. Garrus stared down at her with increasing worry; only the calmness in her eyes and the fact that the others were on their way eased the tension that he was now feeling.

"The way I was before I met you," she finally continued. "I was such a messed-up bitch, keeping myself isolated from everyone and sparing no time for emotion or moral compunctions because I thought… I thought such things got in the way of survival. Then you came along, and… and changed everything. I still don't know _how_. But somewhere, you became my firmest advocate and closest friend, and we both helped each other with everything, and… and when things got bad, you were always there to pull me up again. Somewhere, you became the most important person in my life—don't look at me like that; I mean it most sincerely."

Garrus knew that he shouldn't be so disbelieving. She was an orphan and had grown up on the streets with no friends to speak of, and even after she joined the Alliance, as she said, she kept herself isolated from others. For him to hold such a status was not so inconceivable—but still, it came as a surprise to him. He nodded again and continued to listen.

She went on, "Just as I taught you a lot, so you taught me a lot, too. You taught me what it was to trust and have faith in others and let them in, and you showed me something… higher, grander… than mere survival. You showed me that I didn't have to be alone, that I could afford to be kind to others occasionally, that I didn't always have to be pragmatic. And most of all, you showed me what it was like to truly be alive, and not just existing, and what I'd been missing out on by not knowing about any of that. You gave me something to live for and to love, and changed my whole outlook, and just… you did more for me than anyone ever has, changed my life in more ways than I could describe. You brought me to the light, made me a better person, gave my life _meaning_. And knowing now what I was missing out on, I can't… I can't thank you enough." Her voice cracked, and she gasped for breath again. The pause was longer yet. Finally, she said, "That's why I love you, Garrus. You make me a better person—make me something I never thought I could ever be. And God, I never want to lose it. Ever."

Garrus leant forward to nuzzle her forehead once again when she had finished, partly to disguise the fact that his eyes were tearing. He couldn't describe the feelings that her words had awoken in him, the realisation that he had managed to fundamentally change someone's life for the better and that he did, indeed, mean as much to her as she did to him. For want of anything else to say, he said, "You never will. I swear it."

She was silent again for some moments, and almost oddly still in his arms, but before he could say anything, she murmured, " _Paldies_ , Garrus. _Pal_ … _paldies_."

He knew what the word meant, and so he knew what to say in response. " _Lūdzu_ ," he said immediately.

She stared at him, a faint flicker of delight in her eyes. "How…?"

Garrus chuckled and echoed his words from a month ago. _A month ago? Spirits, if it doesn't feel like another lifetime ago…_

"I've been taking lessons on the side." The delight in her face grew stronger, and she grinned again. As before, the look disappeared nearly as fast as it had come. "I don't know how to say, 'I love you' yet, though."

" _Es tevi mīlu_ ," she said quickly. When Garrus only stared at her, she repeated it, several times and more slowly. He rolled the words around in his head for a few moments—during which time, again, she became oddly still in his arms, only this time she suddenly jerked at the end of it—before hesitantly sounding them out.

For a few moments, she was unable to respond, as she was gasping for breath. By now, there was a distinct and somewhat ominous-sounding rattling in her breathing, and Garrus wasn't sure whether he should mention it or not. He only prayed that the others got here as soon as possible so that they could get her the medical attention that she so direly needed. When he nuzzled her forehead once again, he noticed that it was feeling oddly clammy, and when he looked down, he saw that her lips appeared to be somewhat bluer than they had been when he had pulled her out of the rubble.

Garrus decided then that he would say something, but before he could, she had finally caught her breath and was saying, in a voice feebler yet, "Exactly. You're—a—you're a quick study."

"Good to hear," he said, "but, Shepard—Jūlija—I'm starting to get concerned—your lips are blue, and your breathing is—"

"Shallow and erratic, I know," she interrupted. "I'm pretty sure I broke a few ribs. It's making it difficult. And I haven't really had room to breathe for a while. And my other injuries—aren't—aren't helping." She ran out of breath with that final word and collapsed back into his arms. Once again, she was still—horribly still. The alertness in her face was the only sign he had that she lived yet, and it was when he thought that that Garrus realised, finally, what was happening.

_Spirits,_ he thought. _No._

When she had got her breath back again, he whispered, "Is it—are you—are you trying to hold on, Jūlija? Are you—" He couldn't, and wouldn't, say the word. To say it would make it real.

"I'm trying," she said in the most reassuring tone that she could muster. "It's a miracle I've lasted this long. Not sure how much longer I can hold out—but the others are coming."

As if on cue, Garrus heard just faintly, off in the distance, the sound of footsteps. Once again, Cortez' voice came through over his omnitool. "We see you both!" he was calling. "We're almost there!"

"Hurry!" Garrus called back. "She's in a terrible state!"

Cortez cursed, and in the background, Garrus heard the footsteps speeding up. He looked back down at her. "Just a little bit longer," he told her.

"Yes," she breathed. Her voice was at its weakest, but there was a smile on her face so pure and untroubled—the kind of smile that Garrus had seen from her only once before, and that was when he had been injured, and she had made him and James evacuate the battlefield—that he couldn't help but feel somewhat inspired. "Just a little bit longer… and then…" She lost her breath again.

"And then home," Garrus said while she struggled to regain it. His tone was almost insistent. "Palaven and Riga. Me learning your language. Human–turian babies."

" _Jā_ ," she said. She was slipping back into her native language, he realised. He wondered if that was another bad sign or not but quickly shoved the thought away before it could begin to percolate. "All that. And peace. A life. Tangoes in the Silver Coast Casino. When it's—" She coughed and hacked. The rattle in her breath was getting worse. "When it's rebuilt."

Despite himself, Garrus laughed. "Really?"

"I enjoyed it," she told him, with another smile. Her voice had been reduced to nothing more than a whisper that Garrus had to strain to hear. " _Tas bija_ … it was fun. You were right."

He chuckled. "Aren't I always?"

She shook her head, playfully hitting him on the shoulder, although it was less of a hit and more of a brush with her fingers. "Ah, shut up, Garrus," she teased back. "I'm still going to make you pay for—for dragging me out there in the first place. But…" She laid back in his arms again, resting her head back on his shoulder, and looked up at the sky. " _Bet tas bija labs brauciens._ It was a good ride."

"The best…" Garrus murmured. He tried to ignore the note of finality in her voice, and couldn't quite do it. The footsteps were getting closer.

She continued to stare up at the sky while Garrus held her tight against him. " _Skaists_ …" she said after a while. Her voice was barely perceptible. " _Kosmoss_ … _Tas ir_ … _Tas ir visskaistākā lieta_ … _Visskaistākā_ …" If she said more, he didn't know; her voice faltered and then failed entirely, and she said nothing more after that. What was worse was that Garrus had little idea what she had just said beyond the first word. _Skaists_ meant beautiful, so extrapolating from that…

"It is," he echoed. He looked down in time to see her smile once again, very weakly, and then her head slumped into his chest.

He looked up. The others were approaching the two of them now, as fast as may be. As promised, EDI and Liara were bearing a stretcher between them. The two called out in greeting, while James and Cortez waved their hands. Javik said nothing, merely continued to come forward, but that was hardly a surprise. Garrus shouted out in response before he turned to look back down at her.

Her head was now directly under his chin, and her arms felt loose and limp. Garrus paused, and then it hit him just how _still_ she was. He could no longer feel the rise and fall of her chest. It had been getting weaker before, but now it was gone.

For a moment, Garrus sat there, too stunned to act.

And then, finally, he somehow found the strength to shift his hand from her elbow to her wrist. His fingers trembled violently as he sought her pulse. His mind was too numb with the grim realisation and with shock for him to think. He brought her wrist up and lowered himself a little closer so that he might hear better.

But there was nothing to hear.

"Spirits… Commander!" Frantically, now frenzied into action, Garrus dropped her wrist and snatched the other one, bringing it close to his head and placing his fingers over the streaks of blue that he could just faintly see, as before. Looking at it, he noted how mottled her hands were and the faint purple colour of her fingers. Human flesh wasn't supposed to _be_ that colour. And she wasn't supposed to be so still, and her pulse wasn't supposed to be gone, but—

"Shepard!" he was calling out, but he was only dimly aware of it in all the terror as he dropped the other wrist and moved his fingers to her neck. "Shepard! Please! Shepard—give me—give me _something_! _Shepard!_ " He was shaking her now, but she was too limp, her limbs were too loose, and there was nothing there for him to find, but there had to be _something_ , dammit; he'd come all this way to find her, and she had _promised_ , hadn't she? She wouldn't break her promises—but—but—

Promises.

" _Jūlija!_ " he yelled, desperately. He was unaware of the others shouting in the background, of Cortez' footsteps as he ran across the rubble to reach them. He turned himself around and lowered her; she slumped down into the wreckage in a way that no living human, unconscious or not, would do, and it turned his stomach. He started pleading all over again, but frankly, he couldn't really hear what he was saying over the growing buzzing noise somewhere in his head. He shook her, again and again, but all that he could see was how _limp_ she was, and _no_ , this couldn't be happening, not after _everything_ —

Garrus didn't realise that he was shouting until he felt two pairs of strong hands on his arms, attempting to physically drag him away from her. He resisted, violently, but Javik and James both were too strong for him to throw them off so quickly. "No! Let me go—I need to—!"

"It is too late," Javik said urgently. The note of sympathy in his voice, so uncharacteristic of him, pulled Garrus up short. "She is gone. There is nothing that you can do."

Without thinking about it, Garrus loosened his grip on her. At once, Javik and James began to pull him away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liara, hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Cortez had his face buried in his hands. EDI was shaking her head. He saw it and registered it, but his eyes did not leave what was before him. Even as he let himself be dragged off, he reached out to her, in much the same way that he had reached out after he had been injured. "No—" he gasped. "No—She can't—no—"

She could; she was.

"I am sorry," Javik said. Just for once, his regretful tone sounded nothing short of sincere.

Garrus' knees fell out from underneath him. He took one more look at the scene before him—at the sight of Cortez loading her onto the stretcher while Liara wept.

Finally, he realised, and when he did, he let out a high-pitched, keening sound that was somewhere between a wail and a scream.

He didn't stop until they were making ready to board the _Normandy_ again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please leave a comment and/or kudos if you did.
> 
> **Translations:**  
>  _sūds_ — shit
> 
> _paldies_ — thank you
> 
> _lūdzu_ — you're welcome
> 
> _tas bija_ — it was
> 
> _Kosmoss… Tas ir… Tas ir visskaistākā lieta… Visskaistākā…_ — Space… It is… It is the most beautiful thing… The most beautiful…


End file.
